Ivory Coast community leaders say in the year since the country’s most recent conflict ended, violence has continued in the form of extrajudicial killings by the military.

An Ivory Coast soldier patrols the city of Abidjan last spring. The fighting that followed the country's December 2010 election killed 3,000 people, and community leaders say reprisal killings by the military continue.

By:Robbie Corey-BouletSpecial to the Star, Published on Fri May 25 2012

DUEKOUE, IVORY COAST—On a Friday evening in April, two unmarked SUVs stopped Noel Glao near a hotel outside this town in western Ivory Coast where he was charging his cellphone. Nine men wearing national army uniforms got out and, without explanation, began beating the 35-year-old with their Kalashnikov rifles.

“There was blood everywhere. Noel was asking, ‘Why are you beating me? What have I done?’ The soldiers did not say anything,” recalled Glao’s cousin, Edouard Gnene, who was walking with Glao back to a camp for people displaced by the country’s post-election violence. “Every part of his body was beaten.”

The men, wearing Republican Forces of Ivory Coast (FRCI) uniforms, threw Glao into one of the vehicles and drove away. Nine days later, his body, marred by bullet wounds and lacerations, was found in the nearby Sassandra River, caught in a fisherman’s net.

The recent conflict in Ivory Coast, which erupted in late 2010 after former president Laurent Gbagbo refused to concede electoral defeat to current President Alassane Ouattara, lasted five months and claimed at least 3,000 lives, according to the United Nations. In the country’s west, a region that largely supported Gbagbo, forces on both sides allegedly committed atrocities.

But community leaders in Duekoue say that in the year since the conflict ended, violence has continued in the form of extrajudicial killings carried out by the pro-Ouattara FRCI. The killings, coming after individual arrests or larger raids, have generally targeted members of the Guere ethnic group, which is seen as sympathetic to Gbagbo. The leaders provided a list of 18 such alleged killings so far this year.

The killings are part of a broader pattern of FRCI-led abuses, the community leaders said. Young Guere men describe arbitrary arrests and violent interrogation sessions at the local FRCI headquarters, a hotel the army occupied after wresting control of Duekoue from pro-Gbagbo forces in March 2011.

The allegations could undermine Ouattara’s bid to promote reconciliation in a region where many did not support his election.

“The continued impunity for the Republican Forces in western Cote d’Ivoire remains a major obstacle in restoring the rule of law and in ending the divisions that have repeatedly spurred political violence,” said Matt Wells, West Africa researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Kone Daouda, the local head of the FRCI, declined to comment on specific cases, but conceded that extrajudicial killings had likely occurred. “I’m not going to say there are no extrajudicial killings or human rights violations,” he said. “I try my best to keep those cases under control, to minimize them.”

He said the army is bringing security to the area and “squeezing out the mercenaries, the militias, all those guys.”

“We’re managing to capture some, then there are some who may leave the area,” he said. “But from house to house they’re trying to come back. We do whatever’s necessary to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Alain Tehe, a 22-year-old resident of Guitrozon, a village at the edge of Duekoue, was among 12 men rounded up late one night last July, accused of smuggling arms for anti-government militias. They were taken to the FRCI-occupied hotelon Duekoue’s main road.

Upon arrival, Tehe said, the men were crammed into a 2 metre-by-2-metre guard post with boarded-up windows. The next day they were brought out to the concrete courtyard and questioned. “They kept accusing us of smuggling guns, but we denied the accusation and said we had no arms,” Tehe said. “Then they started beating us with their kalashes (Kalashnikovs). Everybody was beaten for about one hour.”

Tehe was released after four days. By then, the bodies of two relatives detained with him had been discovered 10 kilometres away. Photos show that one man was shot in the back of the head and sustained wounds to his chest, while the other had been bleeding from his left eye and had neck lacerations.

One community leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals, expressed frustration that the killings had continued at a steady pace, with two recorded in January, 10 in February, four in March and two in April.

“People say the war is finished and we are at peace, but these killings have happened after the crisis,” the leader said. “We are OK with reconciliation . . . What we ask the authorities to do is to let the Guere people live. Now there are just these cold killings.”

Witnesses described some of the more recent arrests and beatings as especially brazen. On April 13, men wearing FRCI uniforms arrived at the village of Fengolo at 11 a.m. and started shooting into the air. They soon found 28-year-old Wilfried Tahe, and began beating him in front of his family while accusing him of smuggling arms, said his brother, Sylvain Tahe.

“They came here and they started beating Wilfried seriously with a kalash. His two front teeth were broken,” Tahe recalled.

The men searched Wilfried Tahe’s house for 15 minutes but found no arms. “They didn’t say anything, but they took Wilfried anyway,” Sylvain Tahe said. “It’s just because he’s Guere.”

Tahe still has not been found.

Human Rights Watch’s Wells said the recent raids could have been part of an effort by the FRCI to ensure security in the region prior to Ouattara’s visit to the west last month, his first since taking office.

“The timing raises considerable concern that members of the Republican Forces committed serious abuses against perceived Gbagbo militants in anticipation of President Ouattara’s trip to western Cote d’Ivoire,” Wells said. “Executions, torture, and arbitrary detention also stand in stark contrast to Ouattara’s promise that all those displaced by the conflict can safely return home.”

Authorities have not provided all police and gendarmes with weapons, leaving the FRCI to take the lead on policing in Ivory Coast. The UN’s independent human rights expert for Ivory Coast, Doudou Diene, recommended in January that an arms embargo “be lifted in order to strengthen the effectiveness of the national security system.” Last month, the UN Security Council voted unanimously to maintain the arms embargo but authorized several exceptions, including for training security and military forces and for activities to support reform of the security sector.

In the wake of the recent attacks, young Guere men at the Nahibly camp for displaced persons, located near Duekoue, said they were reluctant to leave even for short errands, citing the FRCI checkpoint right outside the camp’s entrance.

“I cannot go out,” said Edouard Gnene, the cousin of Noel Glao. “I don’t leave the camp because it looks like whenever they find a strong Guere they believe he is a soldier or a militia.”

Research support was provided by The Investigative Fund at The Nation Institute